


I'm Still Standing.

by thesameoldfairytale



Series: Standing at the Point of No Return. [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Otabek Altin, Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Friendship, M/M, Minor Character Death (Mentioned), Non-Graphic Sickness (vomitting), Slow Burn, Swearing, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 19:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10520730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesameoldfairytale/pseuds/thesameoldfairytale
Summary: This story takes place about 3.5 years after the GPF in Barcelona during the off-season. Yuri is still dealing with his grandfather's death and Otabek wants to win some more brownie points to make him feel better.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yuri is 19 here, Otabek is 22.
> 
> Not beta'd.

If he could, Yuri would turn back time to the moment he had his first beer at the age of 16. He would stop himself from even tasting it, let alone having the entire bottle or asking for another. Alcohol didn’t agree with him back then and still made him feel like shit nowadays over two years later. Yuri didn’t know why he kept drinking, knowing full well that he would regret it the next day.

When it came to the previous night though, he wasn’t quite to blame. It was Victor’s fault. Victor knew just as much as everyone else in the Katsuki household that Yuri wasn’t of legal age yet to be allowed to drink alcohol in Japan and yet there he was, pushing one glass after the other into Yuri’s hands, and the younger Russian didn’t even flinch. He just drank whatever Victor put in front of him, something he most definitely regretted now.

Ever since Yuri’s grandfather Nikolai had passed away a couple of weeks after the World Championships earlier in the year, Yuri started to get more or less quite fond of drinking. It made him forget and sometimes that was all he needed, to forget. He didn’t like to be alone with his thoughts which was why he was more than happy when Otabek had invited him to spend half of the off-season with him in Almaty. Once Yuri told Victor and Yuuri about his plans, they made him promise to go to Japan with them for the second half of the off-season. When they had asked him, something inside him wanted to snap. Yuri didn’t want to be smothered by anyone, least of all by the old man and his Katsudon, but that tiny more grown-up voice inside him forced him to realise that spending so much time on his own in St. Petersburg was anything but a clever idea. Granted that Mila and Georgi, as well as Yakov and probably even Lilia wouldn’t let him sulk on his own for long, Yuri had to admit to himself that he would feel more comfortable in Hasetsu, even if that meant spending most of his time around the happy couple. In the end and still a little reluctantly, he had agreed to follow their invitation.

Yuri successfully managed almost two weeks back in Hasetsu before Victor got him drunk. It was a constant battle but the bigger, and more disciplined, part of him was still an athlete first and foremost, and alcohol and ice skating didn’t mix too well. He was aware of that, yet he still lost that battle more often than he cared to admit.

Every muscle in his body was aching, and for once it wasn’t because of ballet or skating practice. Yuri’s stomach growled dangerously which prompted him to gaze almost longingly at the bin on the opposite side of the room. Ultimately deciding that it was too far away, Yuri squeezed his eyes shut again, willing himself to ignore the nausea threating to bubble up. He pulled the blanket up to his nose, hiding his face in the pillow whilst making uncoherent sounds that could only be described as pained noises, if anyone were to hear him.

Just when Yuri thought he managed to keep his strong urge to throw up at bay, his phone began ringing. The obnoxious ringtone that echoed through his room caused his head to figuratively explode and his insides to dangerously curl in on themselves. Before he knew what he was doing, Yuri jumped out of bed, the blanket and his shirt long forgotten on the floor by the time he reached the bathroom. He somehow willed his arm to slam the door shut behind him only to then fall, almost crash, on his knees in front of the toilet to puke his guts out.

Nothing about this was pretty. Not the retching sounds that escaped his throat along with last night’s dinner, nor the sight of his sweaty hair stuck to his pale forehead and neck. Yuri was a mess and he knew it even without looking at himself in the mirror. Despite all of this, or perhaps because of all of this, only one thought crossed his conscience in an otherwise completely empty mind. He hated Victor Nikiforov.

Thinking of the devil, Yuri barely registered the knock on the door that cut through the awkward silence when he fell against the cool tiles of the bathtub, utterly exhausted and close to begging the Gods to let him die.

“Yurio,” he heard the devil’s voice muffled through the bathroom door, “are you alright?”

The only reason Yuri stopped himself from rolling his eyes as hard as he could, was the pain it would ultimately cause him. He didn’t even have the energy to be as mad as he wanted to be.

“Fuck off old man,” was all he managed to spit out and it didn’t even sound as angry as he intended.

Much to his surprise Victor didn’t say anything else, but Yuri wasn’t convinced that he actually left. On the other hand, he didn’t care enough to worry about it either.

By the time Yuri felt strong enough to lift himself up again, his stomach had calmed down a bit but his throat was still burning. Swallowing was painful although the cold water he scooped up with his hands from the sink did relieve the pain to some degree, at least so far that Yuri was able to breathe steadily again. He slowly walked back to his room on wobbly legs, successfully avoiding running into anyone on the way.

Once he reached his room, Yuri let himself fall back onto the bed. His muscles were still aching when he turned his head around to see the clock on his nightstand. 12.36pm. Under normal circumstances Yuri would be cursing himself right about now, being angry with himself for wasting an entire morning in bed when he could’ve spend the time doing other things that were a lot more worthwhile than sleeping. Only a second later though Yuri was actually surprised that he managed to sleep at all, considering how awful he felt.

Yuri lazily let his arm hang over the side of the bed, aimlessly fumbling around the floor for his phone. He thought he dropped it somewhere down there last night but couldn’t be bothered to actually look and check. When he finally found it, it took every bit of willpower he had left to lift his arm back up and turn his head to look it at. The small green light indicating that he had at least one notification was blinking brightly at him.

There were Instagram notifications from Katsudon and Yuuko that he refused to check since he could imagine quite well what he would find. Other than that there was a Facebook message from Mila, an email from Lilia and a text from Yakov. Sighing loudly Yuri decided that all of those things could wait until he felt more human again, but then he noticed a small red number five next to the ‘phone’ icon and another text with a voicemail notification. The calls and the voicemail were all from Otabek.

Without thinking Yuri sat up as fast as he could, immediately regretting it when his head started pounding again mercilessly. He shook his head once to try to rid himself of the pain, only to make it worse.

“For fuck’s sake,” Yuri mumbled at the same time as his fingers automatically called the voicemail number to check what Otabek wanted. With the three-hour time difference between Kazakhstan and Japan, it was just before 10am for Otabek and Yuri wasn’t surprised at all that the older boy was awake, even if he didn’t have to go to practice. But the fact that he called five times in the short time span that Yuri spent emptying his stomach in the bathroom, was suspicious and unnerving.

“Yuri fucking Plisetsky! Pick up your god damn phone…,” the voicemail began and Yuri almost jumped out of bed at the upset tone of Otabek’s voice. What surprised him even more though was the fact that Otabek swore, mainly because he practically never did that.

“Where the hell are you, Yura? We need to talk. Call me back as soon as you get this. Please.”

Yuri only stared at his phone when the voicemail ended. He couldn’t tell if it was panic rising inside of him, or his nausea returning because of the alcohol. One thing he did know though was that he was immediately a lot more awake than he was just about thirty seconds ago.

Ever since Yuri and Otabek became friends back in Barcelona about three and a half years ago, they had grown very close and attached to each other. With Yuri in St. Petersburg and Otabek in Almaty, their friendship wasn’t the easiest thing to maintain but they cared about the other enough to put the effort into it.

In all those years that they had known each other, Yuri heard Otabek swear maybe a handful of times, if at all. Hearing those words out of Otabek’s mouth sent a shiver down his spine, and not the good kind either, especially because he was swearing _at_ Yuri in the voicemail. 

Before he had the chance to think about it for much longer, Yuri called Otabek as requested. It rang only twice before his best friend picked up.

“Yura,” Otabek almost shouted, “finally.”

“What’s going on, Beka? I got your voicemail. You sounded upset. What’s wrong?”

Yuri couldn’t stop himself. The words just came out on their own accord. He didn’t have a chance to think about what he was going to say before he actually said it.

“Where were you?” Otabek asked, his voice as calm as it usually was, absolutely nothing like the angry words yelled earlier.

Otabek’s calmness immediately transferred to Yuri. “Puking the life out of me,” he sighed quietly, barely above a whisper but he was sure Otabek heard him.

Admitting this to Otabek almost hurt Yuri as much as actually throwing up. When Otabek stayed quiet on the other end, Yuri could practically see his face in front of him smirking, that smug little smile gracing his thin lips.

“Stop smirking, idiot,” Yuri then tried to spit out. He failed miserably.

“You got drunk? Again?” Otabek asked, barely able to hide the amusement in his voice.

Yuri only replied with an indescribable growl, prompting Otabek to tease him further.

“I thought you had finally sworn off alcohol after your last encounter with Temir.”

Yuri had tried his best to forget about said encounter since it happened in Almaty a few weeks prior. He was still embarrassed about not only the fact that Otabek saw him throw up for the first time but also that his best friend was holding his hair while he did. It had been a nightmare come alive. Yuri was still mortified.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me, please punch your fucker of a friend for me when you get a chance. Next time I’m visiting you, he will regret the second he came up with that stupid drinking game,” Yuri rambled.

“No one forced you to play along, Yura,” Otabek said, most likely still smirking.

“What? You’re on his side now?” Yuri asked in disbelief.

“I’m just saying that you could have said no. That’s all.”

“Fucking diplomat,” Yuri mumbled but he couldn’t hide the smile on his face now either. He knew Otabek was right.

“Everyone’s been asking about you,” Otabek then mentioned casually.

It had been the first time Yuri spent more than a few days in Almaty and over the course of the several weeks that he stayed with Otabek, Yuri had had a chance to meet most of Otabek’s friends. They were very easy to get along with, which was a new experience for Yuri to say the least. None of them was obnoxious, or annoying, or unfriendly. They were almost too good to be true but even by the end of his stay, Yuri still liked them and even more surprisingly, they still seemed to like him. It threw him off course at first, his usual façade of rudeness and indifference crumbling fast around Otabek’s friends. He had felt vulnerable around them on many occasions, something that he usually only experienced around Otabek and sometimes Yuuko. In the end, Yuri was thankful, not only for them welcoming him with open arms but also for them being friends with Otabek. He was glad that Otabek was surrounded by people who so obviously cared about him, and now they seemed to care about him too.

“I miss everyone,” Yuri foolishly admitted because he knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it later. “I wish I could’ve stayed longer with you.”

“You know Victor and Yuuri would not have been happy about that,” Otabek replied and Yuri knew he was right again, even though he didn’t say that out loud. Because he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting something like that to anyone, Yuri changed the subject.

“So why did you call, Beka?” he asked, half of him intrigued, the other half a little afraid thinking about the unusual voicemail.

Yuri could hear Otabek taking a deep breath and that somehow made him even more anxious, although it was something Otabek did all the time. He was by far the more mature and collected one out of the two of them. Everyone knew that, especially Yuri.

Most people only saw Yuri’s tough side and dismissed him immediately, they didn’t take him seriously but a collected few people he was close with knew that there was so much more to Yuri than he usually let people to believe. Yuri was also very aware of his own behaviour. The majority of the time it was calculated and precisely what he intended it to be, but he also more often than not realised when he took things too far.

Otabek on the other hand didn’t even let things go this far. One thing Yuri learned since getting to know him better was that Otabek was the kind of person who tended to think before he would open his mouth. Everything he said and did was well thought through, the pros and cons, and every implication and consequence considered. Otabek barely let that mask slip, had probably perfected it over years. It could make him look arrogant and narcissistic, even deceitful at times. Yuri knew better though.

“Can you do me a favour?” Otabek eventually asked, his voice calm and steady but Yuri thought he also heard a tinge of nervousness in it. He quickly dismissed that and blamed the alcohol that was still in his system, most likely causing him to imagine things that weren’t there.

“Anything,” he quickly responded, and he meant it.

“Go and see Yuuri, then call me back on skype,” Otabek explained and Yuri wished he could see his face to better judge if Otabek was excited or terrified, because the tone of his voice easily presented both of those things as options.

“Why?” was all Yuri asked in return.

“You’ll see. Just go see him,” Otabek told him again.

Yuri wasn’t particularly keen on leaving his room and talking to Katsudon, or anyone for that matter, and knowing that wherever Yuuri was, Victor wouldn’t be far made him want to hide out in his room even more.

“Why are you doing this to me? I’m hungover and definitely not in the mood to get up.”

He almost winced as soon as those words left his lips, sounding like a little brat, but he knew that Otabek wouldn’t be sympathetic anyway, regardless of how much he would complain. He had lectured Yuri about his alcohol consumption on a few occasions and always pointed out that it was his own fault for not knowing his limits.

“Stop complaining and get dressed,” Otabek said and Yuri quickly wondered how he knew that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Please, Yura.”

“Fine. But I’m blaming you if I throw up again in the hallway,” Yuri said, trying very hard not to sound too much like a stubborn kid who wasn’t allowed to eat ice cream before dinner.

“If you don’t stop whining, I’m going to tell Yuuri to send the package back.”

At that Yuri’s eyes involuntarily grew a little wider, his pouting lips quickly forming into a small smile. “What package?” he asked, now excited.

“Just go already,” was all Otabek said before hanging up on him.

Yuri thought he could hear the faint sound of Otabek’s laughter in the background before the line went dead, and he couldn’t help but smile at that. He was terrified when he got the voicemail but now he was just incredibly curious what package exactly Otabek was talking about.

Somehow Yuri managed to put on a shirt and stalked out into the hallway. It didn’t take particularly long for him to find Yuuri and as expected Victor was right by his side.

“Hand it over, Katsudon,” Yuri basically commanded even before he was really in the room where his fellow skaters were having some lunch.

Under normal circumstances the smell of the delicious food Yuuri’s mother always made for them would make his stomach growl in anticipation but not today. Yuri fought the urge to turn around and leave as fast as he could just to escape the smell of food that slowly but surely tempted the nausea back.

“What?” Victor asked as clueless as usual while Yuuri got up from his seat immediately, a smile spread across his face that he didn’t even try to hide. Yuri didn’t like the look of that.

“Here,” Yuuri said happily when he passed the package over to him.

Yuri practically ripped it out of his hands to look at it. He recognised Otabek’s handwriting and for some reason he immediately felt better. Almost completely lost in thoughts, he wasn’t aware of how a tiny smile was now gracing his lips until Victor pointed it out, because of course he did.

“Hm, who is it from, Yurio?” Victor asked, but the teasing tone of his voice suggested that he already knew the answer to his question. Yuri didn’t bother to reply. He only gave him, and his annoying Katsudon, a threatening glare before he stormed back into his room.

With the package tucked in under his arm, Yuri grabbed his laptop with his other hand and plopped back down on his bed cross-legged. He opened Skype and clicked on Otabek’s icon, the package now securely sitting right in his lap which also meant that he could barely see the laptop screen when Otabek’s face appeared a moment later.

“Hey,” Otabek greeted him.

“Ok, one question. How did you know that the package arrived today?” Yuri asked, because the fact that Yuuri had the package and Otabek knew about it was a little too suspicious to be considered coincidental.

“I asked Yuuri to let me know when it arrived. He rang me this morning,” Otabek explained casually like him and Yuuri staying in touch was the most natural thing in the world. Now that Yuri thought about it, it probably actually was. It shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did, although he couldn’t decide if he was jealous or pleased about Otabek and Yuuri talking without him being involved.

“That’s weird,” Yuri only said, brushing his insecurities off with a wave of his hand hoping that Otabek wouldn’t pick up on it.

“So? Don’t you want to open it?” Otabek asked while Yuri was suddenly aware that he was basically hugging the package in his arms.

Otabek sounded nervous and excited, Yuri thought. Those two emotions barely shared centre stage when it came to Otabek. Yuri knew that, which was why it made him nervous and excited in return.

“Alright then,” Yuri said, trying his best to contain the whirlwind of emotions that was running through him.

He slowly unwrapped the brown paper, which he realised was very unlike him and as soon as he noticed it, he suddenly tore the rest of the paper off in one swift motion. Yuri glanced at Otabek once in a while but his face didn’t give much away. Otabek had that annoying smug smile on his lips but that was it. Reading him over a shit quality video stream wasn’t as easy as it was when they were actually spending time together in person.

Turning his attention back towards the package in his hands, Yuri finally revealed a simple white box that looked like it had been used multiple times the past, the sides worn and the edged pushed it, although the transport to Japan could’ve easily caused that. He carefully lifted the lid only to find a huge amount of white styrofoam pieces. Those were usually used to protect fragile and heavy things but Yuri had a feeling that whatever was in the box wasn’t fragile to warrant this kind of protection, mainly because the box really that wasn’t heavy.

“What is all this, Beka?” Yuri impatiently asked before digging deeper into the box.

“Just reach inside, will you?” Otabek replied, the smile on his lips now a little bigger.

Sure enough Yuri did what he was told. He reached inside the box and below the surface of the styrofoam. His fingers suddenly touched something soft and a little furry, something that confused Yuri to no end. He stilled his hand immediately and raised an eyebrow at the laptop screen, but Otabek only tilted his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders.

Yuri gave up. He knew wasn’t going to get anything out of Otabek, so he might as well just keep on digging. Reluctantly putting his other hand inside the box, Yuri got hold of the soft thing he found and pulled it out.

Upon realising what he was holding in his hands, Yuri jumped up on his bed, ultimately kicking over the box so that all the Styrofoam inside it was spilling across his entire bed and laptop.

“What the fuck, Beka?” Yuri asked a little louder than necessary.

He was almost dancing on his bed, definitely jumping a little up and down, and hugging Otabek’s cuddly bear close to his chest. His eyebrows still high on his forehead and the corners of his mouth desperately trying to reach his ears, Yuri got back down on his knees, his left arm securely wrapped around the bear. He quickly brushed all the Styrofoam aside to find Otabek’s face on the screen, which was easily mirroring his own.

“What. The. Hell, Beka?? Why am I hugging your bear right now?” Yuri asked again.

He loved the bear but he knew it was Otabek’s lucky charm. He had it with him at every competition he participated in and Yuri couldn’t quite fathom why Otabek would send it to him.

“Do you like him?”

“I love him. You know that. I just don’t understand why I have him here with me right now,” Yuri tried to explain, although there wasn’t much for him to explain. Otabek was the one who should offer him an explanation.

“I want you to have him,” he simply said but Yuri wouldn’t let him get off the hook that easily.

“I don’t get it, Beka. You’re going to have to give me a little more than that,” Yuri tried again.

Otabek sighed audibly but it didn’t sound like an annoyed or exhausted sigh and Yuri took that as a good sign. He was still so hyper, his nausea and hangover almost forgotten for the time being.

“It’s just that,” Otabek began, clearly struggling to find words to express what he wanted to say, “I want you to look at that stupid bear every morning or every night and just remember that I’m here for you.”

Yuri was suddenly thrown off balance at those words. He shuffled in his spot and positioned himself cross-legged again in front of the laptop.

“I know that, Beka,” Yuri simply said, hoping that Otabek would believe him.

“I know you do but it’s not just that,” Otabek said, hesitance clear in his voice.

“Then what is it?” Yuri asked cautiously, his own voice quiet and understanding.

“I know you slept with that damn bear every night you were here, Yura,” Otabek said and Yuri felt himself blushing. His cheeks were no doubt sporting a lovely shade of pink and he was crossing his toes that Otabek wouldn’t see it through the laptop screen.

“I don’t know why you did it but I’d like to believe that it brought you comfort,” Otabek tried to explain and Yuri knew what he would say next. “After losing your grandpa, sleep didn’t come easily. You told me that, but when you were here and you held onto that bloody bear at night, you slept, and most importantly you looked relaxed and content. I was worried I wouldn’t see you like that again.”

Yuri couldn’t help but stare at the screen for a moment when Otabek finished talking. He could feel tears pooling in his eyes because the memory of losing his grandfather was still too fresh, but he knew that Otabek didn’t bring it up to upset him.

Quickly turning his head to the side and brushing away the tears before they were going to run down his cheeks, Yuri looked back at Otabek, the bear still clutched tightly to his chest. He wasn’t one to talk about his feelings a lot, not even with Otabek, so he tried his best to smile and be casual.

“Alright, I’m not even going to ask why you were apparently watching me a sleep, you creepy fucker, but,” and Yuri almost stumbled over the next two words, “thank you.”

Yuri’s heart was about to burst when Otabek gave him one of his rare genuine and bottomless smiles. Otabek smiled more than people thought but there was one specific smile that he reserved for only a few special people, and Yuri counted himself lucky to be one of them.

“My pleasure, Yura,” Otabek then said before Yuri heard a phone ringing, and it wasn’t his.

He watched Otabek check his phone quickly before his dark brown eyes returned to the screen.

“I’m sorry, I gotta go. I’m going for a run with Temir. He just got here,” Otabek explained his ringing phone.

“Alright,” Yuri only replied, disappointed that Otabek had to end the call but happy about practically everything else in that moment.

“Listen Yura,” Otabek then said, clearly having something else on his mind before hanging up, “there’s one more thing in the box for you.”

“There is?” Yuri asked curiously.

“Yeah. Just have a look and I’ll talk to you later, ok?”

“Ok,” Yuri said, a small smile still present on his lips. “And don’t forget to punch Temir for me,” he added hastily.

Otabek chuckled and quickly said “Will do. See you later, kitten.” And with that the screen went blank.

Yuri held up the bear right in front of his face. He could feel his lips stretching wide but he couldn’t control it. Otabek was right. The bear did bring him a lot of comfort when nothing else did. The pain of losing his grandfather was worse than he could have ever anticipated, and for some reason having something, having that bear at night to hold onto helped him relax when he stayed with Otabek. Sleeping in Hasetsu hadn’t been easy but Yuri thought it might get easier now. Clutching the bear to his chest felt like pushing new life into a body that was slowly starting to waste away, and that body was his.

Lying back and stretching out his legs, Yuri almost kicked the box off the bed. He suddenly remembered Otabek’s words and started to fish around in it for whatever else it contained. Yuri quickly found an envelope and something else, equally as soft as the bear but at the same time completely different. Pulling it out of the box, Yuri recognised what it was even without unfolding it. It was Otabek’s Kazakhstan team t-shirt.

Yuri opened the envelope and took out a small piece of lavender coloured paper. He recognised Otabek’s handwriting once more, the message short and on point.

_To make the pair complete. – B._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! :) 
> 
> I'm a sucker for meaningful gifts... sorry...


End file.
